P SESHAMMA Vs. P KRUPA SAGAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs are the appellants. Against the order of the learned Single Judge upholding the judgment of the learned V. Addl. Judge, City Civil Court, Hyderabad, dismissing the suit O.S. 872 of 1982 brought for partition and allotment of 1/4th share in the properties left behind by Mr. C. Narasimha Bindu, this appeal has been preferred. Late Narasimha Bindu was the father-in-law of appellant No. 1 and the paternal grand-father of appellants 2 and 3 The husband of appellant No. 1 and the father of appellants 2 and 3 Dr. Dayasagar Patri had pre-deceased his father Narasimha Bindu. Narasimha Bindu died on 6-6-81. The claim of the appellants was based upon Ex. A-9 Will executed by Narasimha Bindu, in which all his sons had been given equal shares in the property. The suit was resisted by the respondents on the pleadings that Ex. A-9 will was substituted by a later Will Ex. B-8 in which the appellants were deprived of any share in the properties. Since the learned Addl. Judge upheld the validity of Ex. B-8 and held Ex. A-9 as not the last Will of the testator and the said findings were upheld by the learned Single Judge, the present appeal has been preferred.

(2.) In the order of the learned Single Judge a portion of the Will Ex. B-8 has been extracted to show the reasons which weighed with the testator to disentitle the appellants' branch from inheritance. It will be useful to extract the same here:

(3.) Mr. Venkataramana, the learned Counsel for the appellants has advanced submissions that while he does not dispute the execution of the Will, yet the Will has to be recorded as not genuine because of the suspicious circumstances attended to it. It is argued that the very fact that a natural line of succession was deviated from and a branch of one of the sons' family was completely disinherited is itself a suspicious circumstance of great magnitude and that unless by independent evidence the Propounder of the Will explains the reason for the exclusion of the appellants' branch from the Will, the Will is not a Will which has to be given effect to. A submission is advanced that the recitals in the Will itself would not be relied upon as an explanation to the suspicious circumstances and that such explanation must come by way of independent evidence led by the Propounder or from the attendant circumstances.